Tears of Blood

by James W. Marvin

  ‘Crow. Like a black bird. Jesus, but that’s what you look like. A dirty old bird.’

  The folks in Mike’s Place laughed at that, making Bart feel a little better. He hitched at his gunbelt, sniffing and looking round to savor the laughter.

  ‘I want you and all these good folks here to know what I say, boy,’ said Crow, quietly. The laughter died away like a summer picnic when there’s a rumbling of distant thunder.

  ‘They’re listenin’, Crow. Caw, caw!’ he mocked, flapping his elbows in a gesture that was more like a chicken than a crow. But it got another easy ripple of merriment from the drinkers of Dead Hawk.

  ‘I just want it seen that I’m bein’ pushed into killin’ this snot-nose kid against my will. I just want to stay here and drink peaceable. Stay the night over yonder, and ride on in the morning. Like that.’

  ‘Well, that ain’t good enough.’ Bart’s confidence had come back, mistaking Crow’s quiet speaking for a form of cowardice. A backing off.

  ‘I figured you’d say that. Just so’s folks know. There a lawman hereabouts?’

  ‘Sheriff Derekson,’ offered a voice from a corner table.

  ‘But he’s at home with a boil on his ass bigger’n a silver dollar.’

  ‘Come on, old man!’ urged Wells. ‘You want to fight, then you up and do it.’

  ‘It won’t be a fight, kid,’ replied the tall stranger. ‘It’ll be me killin’ you in front of all these folks.’

  Taggart began to absently polish a glass that was already clean. Wondering about the name Crow. Sure he’d heard of it somewhere. Further north. Something to do with the Cavalry. He shook his head, forgetting as the boy finally slammed the last door closed behind himself.

  ‘I’m goin’ to kill you, loud-mouthed bastard?’ he said.

  Crow stalked towards the door of the saloon, turning his back on Bart Wells. Calling back to him, over his shoulder: ‘Come on, boy. Let’s get to it. Fine spring day for dyin’.’

  Chapter Three

  The sun blazed down out of the blue bowl of the Arizona sky. A gleaming ball of gold that hurt the eyes after the dimness of the saloon. Crow kept his black hat tugged well forwards over his forehead to protect his sight, taking a few steps out on the main street of Dead Hawk. Apart from a couple of narrow alleys, it was the only street in Dead Hawk.

  To his left a couple of little boys and young girl were running through the dust at the side of the buildings, kicking it over their button boots as if it was snow.

  The word of a gunfight spreads faster than cholera through a frontier town and there were already men standing on the boardwalk. Women twitching at curtains. Opening doors and calling out to each other and to their children. .

  The three who’d been playing in the dirt were duly called and reluctantly abandoned their sport, looking shyly back over their shoulders at the tall man in black clothes who was standing alone in the middle of the street.

  As he waited for the kid, Crow thought back to other fighters he’d met. Other towns. It was always the same. Wherever you went; Once civilization was established, there was nowhere for the boys to go. Nowhere for them to run free and wild. No horizons for them to chase. Always the same folks and the same houses. Same hills away in the distance. So a lot of them went bad. Challenging strangers to fight. Proving themselves that way.

  Proving themselves all the way up the slope to the east of Dead Hawk where he could see the scattering of wooden grave markers.

  He heard the bats wing doors of the saloon creak open, then clatter shut. Turning round and seeing Bart Wells walking hesitantly down the steps towards him. The doors swung open again and the bar emptied its customers into the sunlight to watch the final scene of the small drama.

  ‘Come on, kid. You’re callin’ it. How do you want to play it?’

  Crow had read slushy Eastern magazines about the romance of life in the great West. And they were mostly for hanging on a hook in the necessary out back. They always had a gunfight in them. Always with the handsome young hero in white facing down the villain in black.

  It wasn’t like that. Crow had rarely fought in that way.

  Most times it was a messy, unplanned killing, in a room, or on the run. Not formal like this, And not many men wore white out here. Barbers, maybe. Everyone else wore gray or blue or black.

  He noticed that the barkeep came out last, and that he was holding a shotgun. Casually, low down. As if he was trying to pretend that someone had just given it to him and he didn’t quite know .what to do with it.

  ‘All right, old man. You ready?’

  ‘Just like that, boy? Here and now? You don’t want a bit more space for that pistol? Mighty pretty little gun like that, maybe needs more room. I want to give you every chance, kid.’

  Taggart grinned behind his drooping moustache. He’d never liked Bart Wells. Like most people around town he was also scared of him. Folks secretly enjoy seeing someone they fear brought low.

  ‘Listen…’ began the boy, his voice suddenly cracking into falsetto. Eyes darting around the street, terror eating his guts. Wishing that he could have broken and run to the outhouse and thrown up.

  ‘What is it, boy? Want to back off and kind of say you’re sorry?’ asked Crow, His voice calm and reasonable.

  Way to the edge of town he’d seen an old man hobbling away, constantly looking back in case he missed something. It didn’t take a lot of intellect to guess that he was going for the lawman. Crow wanted to make as sure as he could that folks backed up his story.

  ‘I don’t…’ began Bart Wells, and Crow prompted him, standing feet slightly apart, left side towards the boy. Ready for the unexpected. Seeing Taggart shuffle a few paces left.

  ‘Take it kindly if you’d put that Meteor down, barkeep,’ he said, without taking his eyes off the boy. ‘Kind of makes me a little nervous.’

  ‘Sure. Sure, Mister Crow. Glad to oblige,’ said Taggart, dropping the shotgun to the boards with a thump, holding up both hands to the shootist, palms out, grinning nervously.

  ’That’s better. You were sayin’ something, kid? Maybe a word like sorry. Good and loud so people hereabouts can hear what kind of a boy you are. One who pushes for a fight and then backs off when he gets scared.’

  Now it was Crow doing the pushing. Having come so far towards a tight he wanted to go ahead. Wipe the punk out of his path. If he was going to stay the night in Dead Hawk, he didn’t want this boy collecting a few friends and ambushing him the next morning. Once you’d set off on a path it was better to follow it through.

  Saying sorry didn’t end it. He knew that.

  ‘I ain’t scared of you, you long-haired breed bastard!’ spat Bart, rallying his spirits. Standing facing Crow, about a dozen paces oil. Fingers twitching over the holstered Peacemaker.

  The old-timer had reappeared at the further end of Dead Hawk. Scampering along and urging on someone behind him. A big man, who seemed to be finding it a mite hard walking. Even at that distance Crow’s excellent sight made out the man buckling on a gun belt as he came.

  That was probably good news. With the lawman in view, all Crow had to do was push the kid into lighting now. So that the whole damned town would see him draw first; And he was already on the edge of that.

  ‘Play it then, boy. I don’t have all day.’

  ‘You got all eternity,’ replied Bart Wells in a burst of confidence. Looking at the shabby clothes of the drifter. And not even a proper handgun. Just a cut-about scatter- gun he’d probably picked off a town dump.

  Actually, it was a ten-gauge Purdey. Just about the finest shotgun in the world. Dated eighteen sixty-eight. Hand engraved with a polished walnut stock. Crow had spent hours working on the twin barrels to get the balance right. The barrels were filed down to a bare four inches long, which meant the shot began to star out almost the moment you pulled the triggers. Anything over twenty paces and you might as well have spat at your target. Bring it down under fifteen paces and it was lethal.

  Ba
rt Wells stood around ten paces off.

  There was a moment of silence while the .two men stared at each other. Crow could see the Sheriff was limping closer. If he’d wanted the lawman could have drawn and fired his own pistol and stopped the fight. Crow thought in passing that it was interesting that he didn’t. The kid was the sort who’d done this before. Maybe he was a kind of unlicensed cleaner of the town. Made the lawman’s job easier.

  Up above, a vulture swirled on a thermal of hot air, its leathery wings spread wide. Gliding effortlessly a thousand feet up.

  Somewhere behind the dry goods store Crow heard a child cry out. Once. A harsh slap and another cry. Then the silence came back,

  Bart Wells moved his feet and Crow knew that this was going to be it. Some men said watch the eyes. Others said the hands. Or even the feet. Crow watched it all. Seeing the tongue flick out like a lizard’s to lick the dry lips. The wipe of the palm down the side of the breeches. The eyes blinking nervously. A dropping of the right shoulder. It was the language of the body and it yelled out that the boy was about to go for his gun.

  In return, Crow never moved a muscle. He’d been ready ever since he turned to face the kid, and there was nothing he could do to get any readier. Bart Wells wasn’t that good.

  It was just that he’d never had any real opposition. Top shootists happened never to have come through Dead Hawk. If any of them had, then he’d have died that little earlier.

  That was all.

  He’d practiced long hours out back where the wilderness came close, shooting at tin cans and bottles. That made him reasonably fast and fairly accurate. Tin cans and bottles never shoot back at you.

  Taggart watched unblinkingly from the boardwalk. Seeing the boy start his draw. A clear fragment of frozen time ahead of the stranger. Hand dipping, hip swinging in the manner of a born shootist. The pistol snug in his fingers, thumb cooking the hammer of the Colt. Turning slightly sideways so that he presented a smaller target to the man who called himself Crow.

  But the tall man, lean as hickory, was so much faster.

  Drawing the clumsy weapon with all speed that indicated amazing strength in the wrist. Also moving more sideways with the draw, throwing his shoulder into the action.

  Bart Wells didn’t have the pistol leveled before Crow fired. Only using one trigger. One barrel. Holding the other in reserve, just in case it was needed.

  It wasn’t. .

  There was the boom of the shot and the cloud of black powder smoke. Drifting bitter across the street to the nostrils of the watchers. With a gun like Crow’s Purdey, you didn’t need a whole lot of practice against cans and bottles. As long as it was pointed roughly in the right direction, it didn’t much matter a few inches one way or the other.

  But Crow was good with it.

  The charge of lead ripped into the boy at a hand’s span above his belt. Throwing him backwards, the unfired pistol flying from his hand, clattering to the dirt twenty yards away, the impact breaking the hammer.

  The shot took away most of his belly. Cutting under the floating ribs, into the welded mass of soft intestines, driving through with a fearful impact, some of the buckshot angling upwards to burst the boy’s heart into tatters of torn muscle and blood.

  Bart landed on his back in the dirt, his watery eyes if blinking up. Unable to believe he was dying. There was no real sensation of pain which was a small mercy that he had done little or nothing to deserve.

  There had been the flash of the stranger’s gun and then it had felt as though a mule had kicked him in the side. Next thing he felt cold as if a blue norther was whistling around him. The dust under his hands had turned to mud. He managed to lift his fingers and saw that the mud was crimson.

  Last thing Bart Wells remembered before his mind clouded over was that the stranger had said something about lying on his back and looking up at the sky. And here he was doing just that.

  ‘How did he know?’ he whispered, taking the puzzle with him.

  Crow ejected the spent cartridge from the Purdey and flicked in another readymade from a pocket of his black jacket. Sliding the sawn-down gun into the trimmed holster. Waiting. Knowing that there was no point in making any kind of move. The boy might have had some friends, though he felt he didn’t. In any case there was the Sheriff to deal with.

  Derekson had stopped at the single shot, then coming on towards the tall stranger. Drawing a massive Tranter from its worn holster. Wheezing from the effort of having to hurry. it,

  ‘You the law?’ asked Crow.

  ‘What the Hell you think this is?’ snapped the Sheriff, touching the silver star on his lapel. ‘Piece of prettied bird shit?’

  ‘Guess not.’

  ‘You killed that boy.’ It wasn’t a question. Crow knew that everyone had seen the duel and everyone knew how it had come on down. But whether anyone was going to tell it that way was something different.

  ‘Everyone heard it. And saw it. The kid pushed me into a fight.’

  ‘That right now. He was only a kid, Mister. And you look to me like you surely been around. What they call you?’

  ‘Crow.’

  The Sheriff scratched his nose with the tip of the Tranter’s barrel. Uncertain how to handle it.

  ‘Just Crow?’ ·

  ‘Yes. Just Crow.’

  ‘You say folks seen this?’

  ‘Ask the bar-keep.’ replied Crow.

  ‘Taggart?’

  ‘Sure. Kid was doing his lick my boots or I kick your bastard head in game, Sheriff. Stranger here tried to keep out of it. Bart wasn’t havin’ that.’

  ‘Yeah,’ grunted the Sheriff. Wincing and drawing himself up as if he was in pain. His left hand creeping around to the rear of his breeches and touching himself gently. Wincing again. .

  ‘I’m aimin’ to go back in and have myself another drink, Sheriff. And stay the night. You got any objections to that?’

  Derekson considered the question. An unpleasant smile tugging at his mouth. ‘Guess I don’t. No. You say your name’s Crow?’

  ‘That’s it. You got it. Crow. Want it a fourth time, Sheriff?’

  ‘There anything known about you, Mister? Seems to me you got you the look of someone might be wanted somewheres for something?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I could check through flyers. See if there was anything there.’

  It was trouble. Crow sensed it. Balancing in his mind whether to make a play against the lawman and try for his stallion.

  But the whole town was there. Too many men with guns.

  ‘Yeah. You surely can stay the night. In the jail. I’m arrestin’ you for murder. Cold-blooded murder. Move your ass!’

  Chapter Four

  All the notables in Dead Hawk came to see the shootist that Sheriff Derekson had brought in. Gawping at Crow through the heavy bars of the single-cell jail. Chattering A about him as if he was a specimen in a zoological garden. The peace officer himself hadn’t bothered. He’d marched Crow to the jail at the wrong end of the Tranter, taking his Purdey. Adding the Peacemaker from the back of the belt. And tossing the honed-down saber on top of the desk. Looking at it with particular interest.

  ‘Army, huh? You in the Army, Crow? Cavalry man, maybe? Even a runner from the pony-soldiers? Could just be.’

  ‘I was a Lieutenant in the First Squadron of the Third Cavalry, out of Fort Buford. Commanding Officer was Captain Menges.’

  ‘Not now?’

  ‘No.’ Crow ventured a rare smile. ‘Not now, Sheriff. The Cavalry and me decided that we’d seen just about as much of each other as we wanted.’

  ‘Now you’re a killer.’ Derekson eased himself very slowly and carefully on the padded cushion that covered his revolving wooden chair. Looking up at the tall man in black with a puzzled expression. ‘Yeah. I seen the killers before, Crow, and you got the stamp.’

  ‘If I hadn’t then it’d be me with my blood muddying up your street, Derekson,’ replied Crow calmly.

  ‘Could be. Bart wa
s always like a body just lookin’ for somewheres to die. Had to come. What kind of trade are you in, Crow? Bounties?’

  ‘Could be. I guess I see myself as a kind of alchemist. I turn lead into gold.’ But he saw the reference was lost on the lawman.

  ‘You get locked up now, Crow. In there,’ Derekson had told him.

  ‘You goin’ to charge me with killing that little bastard?’

  ‘Town like this, Crow,’ explained the Sheriff with great patience, ‘has currents flowin’ beneath it that you might not see when you first take a look. If’n it was down to me then I’d either kick you out of Dead Hawk or maybe hang you from the nearest tree. Depends on how I was feeling. Right now this pain in my butt’s so God-damned hurting that I could lynch you up there on my ownsome. That way it’s neat and tidy.’

  Crow nodded.’ I understand that. Might do the same in your place. You wasn’t ever stung by a dead bee, was you, Sheriff?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just that a man takes care like you do. I wondered if you’d ever been bitten by something you figured was no more threat?’

  Derekson laughed. ‘See your point, Crow. By God but I do. Stung by a dead bee. Like it. Like it a lot. You ain’t a half bad old boy, Crow. Tell you that. Surely hope the folks that matter tell me to let you go on free. I surely do. Dead bee.’ ·

  He’d still been laughing when he slammed the cell door shut on Crow.

  For a small township like Dead Hawk, there seemed to be an awful lot of folks who considered themselves to be important. First along was the banker. Jacob Verity. A dried husk of a man whose spirit burned like a flame through some dreadful illness. He was close to six feet tall yet Crow doubted that he weighed in at more than a hundred and ten pounds. Lines of pain were ground in around the thin-lipped mouth and his hand H constantly pressed against his stomach in a gesture of discomfort that had become a habit.

  He looked at Crow without speaking for several moments, then sniffed and walked out.

  He was a cousin of the Brown who owned the saloon. Who in turn was a cousin of Sheriff Derekson.